Sharon I’m always interested in words that relate to a particular area. A couple of weeks ago, I looked at words for book lovers. Now it’s time to think of words about words. In this case, I’m concentrating on one particular Latin root, verbum, the Latin word for word. That has spawned a number of other … Read more
I recently mentioned a book called Mind The Gaffe, which is all about errors in English. It got me to thinking about the word gaffe and other related expressions. I set out to do some digging in my trusty dictionary and came up with a few surprises. The word gaffe means a social blunder and … Read more
As a prefix, super- originates from the Latin super, an adverb and preposition meaning above, on top of, beyond, beside. That’s the original meaning of the English prefix, too, though according to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, it has taken on other senses over the centuries. These include: Higher in rank, quality or degree … Read more
After my recent post on reduplicatives, Jaguar asked for definitions of the terms in the post. Of course, now I’m wishing that I hadn’t included quite so many examples, but here goes: Repeating reduplicatives: ack-ack – anti aircraft fireaye-aye – yes (often used by seamen)bang-bang – sound of a gunberiberi – disease caused by vitamin … Read more
Well, I couldn’t let the men have all the fun. English has a lot of words that contain the Greek root meaning woman or female – gyn. This appears at the start or in the middle of many common words. As with the andr- words, many of these have biological or scientific origins. Here’s a … Read more
Andro- derives from the Greek andros (man) and denotes anything that’s male or masculine (and you thought that was testosterone 🙂 ) It’s given us several words, many of them scientific or biological: andranatomy – the dissection or structure of the male body androcentric – regarding men as being primary or central androcephalic – having … Read more
This collection of book words is not for bibliophobes (book haters), but if you love books, then these are great words for you to use in writing and conversation. They all derive from the Greek biblion, which means book. If you’ve ever researched an essay, then you probably had to provide a bibliography – a … Read more
Reduplicatives never travel alone. In fact, they always come in pairs and sometimes sound rather silly. These are the words formed through reduplication, when you repeat a word to form a new one, or slightly change the vowel or consonant. These are inventive and musical words and there are hundreds of them in English. Also … Read more
It’s easy to trip up when speaking or writing, but what do you call the results when you do? A few weeks ago, I wrote about eggcorns. These are errors in which people guess wrongly the meaning, origin and spelling of certain expressions. An example would be writing or saying ‘flaw in the ointment’ instead … Read more
No-one knows it all, and as a writer I use several sources of research for my articles and ebooks. Aside from the resources I use to research particular topics, there are also several essential books I need related to the craft of writing. Here are the books on my bookshelf which I couldn’t do without. … Read more
The Oxford Dictionary of Etymology tells an interesting story of the origin of the word knickerbockers. In 1809 Washington Irving, who is famous for the short stories Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, published a book called History of New York. The book was published under the pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker. Pictures … Read more
One common spelling error is omitting the K at the beginning of words where it is silent (example: nick-nack instead of knick-knack). The origins of silent K are difficult to pin down. What we do know is that the k wasn’t always silent, especially in words of Germanic origin. Just as it is in German, … Read more